In the Picture
by Piccolo999
Summary: Max has just returned to Arcadia Bay, but finds that Chloe still resents her for leaving five years ago. One strange night later, Max wakes up in a very different world. AU. Pricefield. Fluff and light angst.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Life is Strange or any of its characters. They all belong to Dontnod, etc. I make no profit from this.

 **In the Picture**

Chapter One

Max Caulfield learnt pretty quickly that messing with time could have unexpected complications. At first she wasn't sure what was happening, when she stared at the old photograph of her thirteen-year-old self, posing with her parents. She remembered the picture well, because it was taken just before her dad left for that fateful interview which led to them moving to Seattle, and that in turn was the very reason she found herself staring back at the picture five years later. If her dad had never taken that interview, they wouldn't have moved, and then Chloe wouldn't have hated her guts for abandoning her.

They had moved though, and Max hadn't been able to bring herself to even text Chloe, and the longer she waited, the harder it became. She didn't know what to say. Chloe had just lost her dad, then Max had been forced to leave, and the last time they spoke, Chloe had begged her not to go, but Max had no choice. Max's parents had consoled her and told her that she needed to let Chloe go, a clean break, they said, and eventually Max had given in, too unsure of herself to try and keep in contact. But she had never stopped thinking about her best friend, and so when she moved back to Arcadia Bay to attend Blackwell Academy, the first thing she did was contact Chloe.

Chloe had changed, though, into a person Max didn't recognise. Chloe was all blue hair and tattoos, an anti-authority aura to go with her even harsher attitude. Not that Max blamed her for being that way. She was willing to put that all aside, and get to know her friend again, but Chloe wasn't. She resented Max for abandoning her in her time of need, and felt justly betrayed.

Max had run away from the other girl's vitriolic attack, fleeing back to her dorm at Blackwell. That was when she had started to go through old photographs, seeking comfort in a time that felt lost to her. When that photo began to pulse in hands, the image distorting strangely, Max thought she was hallucinating. The only way she could describe it was that she felt a pull coming from the picture, and unable to ignore it, she had allowed herself to be drawn in.

When Max opened her eyes, she thought it was a dream. Surely she had fallen asleep in her dorm, the memory of that day infecting her subconscious. She was thirteen again, sandwiched between her parents arms as the automatic camera flashed, capturing the image she had just been looking at.

Feeling as if she was dreaming, Max watched as her mom went to check the picture. Her dad turned to smile at her. It was so surreal. Max looked at her thirteen-year-old hands.

'Are you okay, honey?' Her dad asked her.

'Y-yeah,' Max replied shakily, not at all sure that she was. She gave her dad a weak smile and started to walk off, looking around at her old home, a home she hadn't seen in five years. The thing was, it didn't feel like a dream. She felt more awake than ever, and if she let things play out normally, her father would drive off to a successful interview that would transplant the Caulfield's from Arcadia Bay to Seattle. But now she knew the outcome, Max could make sure the interview never even happened. All it would take was four quick stabs to the tires of her dad's car, and he wouldn't be driving anywhere anytime soon - four stabs that would change her world forever. Max looked at her hands again, and then made her way into the kitchen to find a knife.

When Max woke up in the morning, back in her seventeen-year-old body, she groggily dismissed the night's events as a strange dream. She noticed nothing amiss as she showered, got dressed, grabbed her bag and left for her first class of the day. It wasn't until she was crossing campus grounds that her new reality asserted itself.

Max stopped in surprise when she saw Chloe standing by the fountain outside the main campus building, as if she had been waiting for her. Even more surprising was that Chloe actually smiled at her when she saw her. Had something changed during the night? Max wondered. Has she forgiven me?

Then Max's world was blown up when Chloe jogged up to her, grabbed her hands, and…

And kissed her!

Max pulled back immediately, gasping in surprise, eyes wide and mouth open, completely confused by this turn of events.

'Chloe!? What the hell?'

Chloe's eyes flickered around the empty campus, and then back to Max. 'Woah! Chill, Maximus Prime, no one's watching.'

'You just kissed me!'

Chloe rolled her eyes. 'Well yeah, duh. What's going on Max? You're acting kinda cray.'

'I'm acting cray?' Max shook her head, looking around for something that would explain Chloe's strange behaviour. Was it some kind of joke? Revenge for leaving her? Surely this wasn't real. Max just couldn't comprehend what was happening.

'Okay-okay,' Chloe said, holding her hands up and backing away, a look of concern on her face. 'Clearly I've done something wrong. Of course, I always do. Just… talk to me Max, yeah?'

'I… I… you…' But Max had no words for her. Her mind was spinning, unable to land on an explanation. She had to force a lung full of air into her chest in an attempt to calm herself before she could say. 'Yesterday, you hated my guts, and today, you're… you're… kissing me? I don't get it Chloe. Is this some sick game? I know I - '

'Wait one minute,' Chloe interrupted, frowning. 'Yesterday I hated your guts? Have you been in my stash? Are you baked? Shit, yesterday we went up to the lighthouse. Remember? We… _you know_.' Chloe emphasised the last two words with a pointed look, her meaning clear.

Max blushed at the very thought, shaking her head in denial. None of that happened.

'No, no, no,' Max said, walking back and forth with her head down as if searching for a clue on the ground, anything that would explain what was happening.

'Max, seriously.' Chloe tried to take her arm, but Max shrugged her off and backed up even further. Chloe looked hurt for a moment, but her concern for Max was more pressing, and she quickly pushed down her own feelings.

'I'm sorry, I've gotta go.'

For the second time in two days, Max ran away from Chloe, but this time for very different reasons. She ran all the way back to her dorm, desperately trying to make sense of everything that just happened. Had Chloe really just kissed her? What had Chloe been talking about? They hadn't gone anywhere near the lighthouse yesterday, and they certainly hadn't done… _that!_

Max shut the door to her room behind her and slumped down, hugging her knees to her chest. Her eyes locked on her computer desk, and the photo standing beside the monitor. Yesterday, the frame had held a cherished picture of her parents. Today, the image had changed. Feeling as if her heart might rip itself from her chest, Max crawled towards the desk, wanting to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. They weren't. The picture now framed on her desk was a younger version of herself locked in an embrace with a younger version of Chloe, cheek to cheek, both of them smiling. In the background of the picture, a huge banner proclaimed it was Chloe's fifteenth birthday.

How could this be? She hadn't even been in Arcadia Bay when Chloe turned fifteen. She had left years before. She remembered exactly what she had been doing that day. She had sat in her room in Seattle, thinking about how it was Chloe's birthday, wanting to text her but too afraid to do so.

Max picked up the picture, tracing her fingers over the two smiling teenaged faces. Then she felt it again, that sensation, the same one she had felt the night before. Pulling her into the frame, as if it wanted to show her something. Max gasped and dropped the picture, watching it fall, unable to stop it. The glass shattered on the edge of her desk and came to land face down on the floor.

Last night, she had experienced the same thing, and had dreamed of that moment. Or had it been more than a dream? Had she somehow… but no, that was insane. And yet, she couldn't explain it any other way. Trembling, Max reached out, turning the frame over and removing the photograph from its wrecked confines. Almost as soon as she touched it, she felt the pull again, and the image began to distort. Exactly the same way the picture had the night before.

If she focused, would she be pulled in, to relive that moment?

Max thought back over the events of the last two days. She had returned to Arcadia Bay, only to find that her childhood friend hated her. In her despair, she had sought out the comfort of her old photo albums. And in one of those albums, the fateful picture that had allowed her to… travel back in time? To change the past so that she had never left Arcadia Bay. The result of which was what? That she and Chloe had developed some romantic relationship? A relationship she didn't remember. Five years of her life that she couldn't remember. It was nuts.

Max looked down at the image of her younger self, happily hugging Chloe on her birthday. She couldn't remember this event, but if she allowed it, maybe she could experience it. Maybe she could find out how everything had changed.

Feeling as if she was going mad, Max allowed herself to be drawn in.


End file.
